Looking for a new tow vehicle, need some opinions.

Askibum02 wrote:
I'm looking at two trucks :
1) modestly equipped '16 Ram 2500 CTD Tradesman
2) loaded '16 F-150 XLT 3.5L EcoBoost.

.....My vehicle is also my mobile office and I drive about 30k miles a year.

.....Which one will do better from a longevity standpoint.....which one will have better resale in 3-4 years with high miles?

Brett

Brett,
The EcoBoost F150 is a very capable vehicle for sure. If equipped properly they are rated for about 11,000 lbs towing capacity.

However, since you're concerned with resale value I would say hands down go with the Ram CTD. Even though it lacks all the features of the F150, it will hold it's value over the course of 90,000 miles better than the F150. Diesel trucks are a sellers market and have been for quite a while. My friend has an '05 Chevy 2500HD with Duramax/Allison with 200,000 miles on the odometer it still books over $17,000. Last fall I sold my '04 2500HD, 6.0L gas engine with 110,000 miles and was lucky to get $8,000. Granted the '04 was a low option truck, but even it wad loaded it wouldn't have booked for more than $13,000 with that relatively low mileage.

Another comparison is the size of components. I've been under my Ram to service it and even compared to my '04 Chevy......EVERY COMPONENT SEEMS ABSOLUTELY MAMMOTH. All the parts on this truck are huge and seem over engineered. If you were to compare all this to an F150 it wouldn't even be close. Not that the F150 is poorly engineered but it just seems like RAM decided to make everything bigger and more HD than was necessary.....and that's a great thing for longevity.

KJ

Go for the diesel Dodge. It's way more truck than the F150.

We just bought the diesel and are loving it. Wish we did it two trucks ago.

We did go with ram as they had the towing capacity and well the bells and whistles since we expect this truck to last us awhile.

My $.02...... we went to a new 2010 Ram 3500 4x4 megacab CTD SRW six years ago from a 1989 Chevy 3500 4x4 crewcab dually with a 454. As said by others, I will never tow with a gas engine again. If a 2500 Ram CTD is on the table then a like equipped 3500 is only a little more and has a lot higher cargo capacity. In our case a 2500 base price was $39760 and CTD option was $7500. The same level 3500 with standard CTD was $47120 minus $990 for dually delete credit. Do the math. We did not get TPMS (not available on 3500) but just added TST 507 for TV and FW last year.

The worst 2500 on the road will still be a better truck than any 1500. Stronger frame, bigger axles, tires,brakes,wheens, etc,etc,etc.

Buy a diesel, you'll never look back. I was thinking about an ecoboost to. I'm glad I bought a diesel. I'll never pull with a gas motor again

A 2500 diesel should do better than a 150 gas in nearly every category you mention.
While an EcoBoost may be high miles around 150,000 I doubt a CTD would be considered that until at leat 200,000.
I'm not one to prefer feature laden trucks. The last two new trucks I've bought didn't even have power windows. I buy trucks to work hard and get a job done and the Ram is clearly built for that.